Berrylicious Overnight French Toast ~ Inspired by ABC’s The Chew

Happy Tuesday to you! I have a fabulous breakfast dish to share with you today. It’s simply a perfect way to use up left over berries that you may have in the fridge. You know me, I always have a ton of berries, especially strawberries. Yum! I am just afraid it’s starting to get close to the end of their season. Then I’ll have to spend my winter dreaming of my wonderful little red berries. But I will tell you I bought some black berries from the farmers market this weekend and WOW! They are the best blackberries I have ever had, so sweet and delicious. I was surprised on how good they are. But enough berry talk let me show you what I made just for you this morning!

Mmmm, mmm just look at this french toast! I am loving these kind of breakfast’s. The crazy part is how simple it is to make. Just before you go to bed, you make your french toast, which takes like 10 minutes tops, cover and refrigerate. Pop it in the oven in the morning and in about 40 minutes, you have a hot, Berrylicious French Toast. I was inspired to make overnight french toast from the TV show The Chew. Have you seen it? If you’re a foodie, food lover, love to cook and love humor, this show is for you! I saw the episode where Carla made this most creative cake and I was stunned by her simple idea, that anyone can do. It’s remarkable! Because of Carla’s overnight pudding cake, I got the idea for my overnight french toast. I have the clip for you. You have to see it, crazy, awesome idea! The cake is amazing! I have never seen anything like this done before. I love it! Plus you have to hear what the cast members said at the end of the segment. It’s too funny!

[Spider_Single_Video track=”4″ theme_id=”4″ priority=”0″]

Did you watch it? Wasn’t that too cool? Now you can see how I came up my recipe! Here is a little more scoop about my recipe. For the bread I used a simple gluten-free bread, cut it up and mixed it in with some strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. Then I made my filling, which is made of a few simple ingredients, like greek yogurt, egg substitute, coconut milk, stevia, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Give a mix, pour over the bread, cover and let it sit overnight. Actually, I’ll be honest with you, mine sat for 24 hours. I meant to make it the next day, but I got to busy and didn’t have time, so if you let it sit for 24 hours, it still tasted as wonderful!

I of course had to dress up my french toast with a little bit more berry love! I took a little bit of my homemade berry compote and heated in the microwave and topped it on the french toast. It’s so simple to make berry compote, all you do is take a bunch of berries, place them in a skillet, add some sugar and a squirt of lemon juice and cook until thicken, about 10 minutes. That’s all, but if you want a more step by step directions, you can go here, but I also included it in the recipe below. If your out of berries or just don’t feel like making it, just heat up some of your favorite berry jam in the microwave and use that to top on your french toast! Easy peasy!

1 cup mixed berries ( I used half cup each of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries)

½ tsp. lemon juice

2 packet stevia

Instructions

Spray about 6 x 4 baking dish with cooking spray; Add the bread to the dish.

In a bowl, add your berries, lemon juice and 2 pkt. stevia; mix well and add to the bread crumbs (I also mixed some in between the bread.

In a bowl, add egg substitute, coconut milk, yogurt, salt, 3 pkt. stevia and vanilla extract. Mix well and pour over the top of your bread and berry mixture. Push the bread down with a spoon to make sure it gets covered with mixture. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, take bread mixture out of the refrigerator and set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, bake french toast for 30 - 50 minutes. Mine took 40 minutes. If the bread starts to brown on top, gently cover with with aluminium foil. The french toast is done,once center is firm to the touch and comes clean if you insert a toothpick in the center. NOTE: I recommend adding some aluminum foil to the bottom of oven, the berry juice may bubble out of the sides of the baking dish.

Let the french toast cool for a few minutes and serve warm. Top with fresh berries or maple syrup if desired.

For Berry Compote: 4 Cups of mixed berries – I used strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Use your favorite! Cherries work great too!!Juice of half a lemonSugar – Optional, if you like your compote sweetened or your fruit is on the tart side, add about ¼ cup of sugar. I didn’t add any!

Directions:Place fruit in a skillet, add lemon juice, and sugar. Turn heat up to medium and stir constantly until thick and bubbly. About 7 minutes for fresh fruit and 10 minutes for frozen fruit.

I have to tell you more about ABC’s The Chew! I just get so excited over food things, especially TV shows! All I watch on TV is cooking shows and occasionally the news. What I like about The Chew is their great ideas they have. You learn something new everyday, like what to do with leftover food, how to save time while cooking dinner and best of all, the great ideas for recipes. I have been inspired and I saw a few more recipes that I have to give a try. Plus a big benefit of the show are the hosts! You know celebrity chefs Mario Batali (love him!), Michael Symon (adorable!), and Carla Hall (funny!), plus lifestyle expert Clinton Kelly (hilarious!) from What Not To Wear and Daphne Oz (love a girl who can drink hot sauce!). This group works great together and make the show so much fun!

I have an episode that I caught last week, that I loved!! Mario isn’t on this episode, but one of my all time favorite chefs are, Celebrity Chef Ming Tsai. I love him! When I was in my 20’s, I used to watch his cooking show all of the time. He is the reason I love stir-fry and speaking of stir-fry’s, you have to see what Ming did with the left overs, plus one of my favorite segments, can you blend that? You gotta watch it, so I included the full episode right here for you! If video is not working you can go here to watch the full episode.

[hulu id 512 288][hulu fi8nmr7m9ea36o_9oes3ba]

Wasn’t that cool what Ming did with leftover stir-fry? I wonder if I could do that with peppers and onions? Oh and how about that cake in the blender? Too cool! I want to make a cake just so I can blend it! If you want to try out new recipes or get inspired to make a new dish, check out The Chew it’s on weekdays 1e|12p|c on ABC. I wonder what other summer inspirational dishes I can come up next with watching The Chew? How do you put your own spin on a favorite Summer dish?

Have a great day everyone!

Toodles,

Jennifer

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of ABC’s The Chew. The opinions and text are all mine.

Comments

I LOVE The Chew!!! I’ve watched since the first day. If I can’t watch when its on I DVR it. It is so much fun and they share lots of good information. I just found your blog through Zip, where one of your recipes was highlighted. From looking at your site you cook healthy too. Love that you use stevia.

Hi, Welcome to my blog. My name is Jennifer and I am a health food blogger. I try to take everyday food and make it healthier without sacrificing the flavor. Find out more about me in the About Section of my blog.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.